Ricefish and Shrimp??

[Yanni]

I currently have a 20 gallon pond that has about 30 tricolor ricefish. It has some water lettuce and I am planning on adding some underwater plants like ludgiwia and rotala. Also thinking of adding a lily of some sort. However, I've noticed that the ricefish have started breeding and I was interested in adding some shrimp like blue dreams or red cherry shrimp. Will the shrimp eat the eggs? Can I establish a colony of both ricefish and shrimp in the same pond or will the shrimp end up eating all the ricefish eggs?

[TheSwissAquarist]

Firstly, it depends on the pond temperature.

Secondly, in my experience Ricefish tend to lay their eggs on floating plant roots, and as shrimp don’t swim up to the top too often…

 

Although, I expect that with shrimp you shall get less eggs that without.

[Nik_n]

Shrimp, such as blue dream or red cherry won't eat or harm fish eggs. Some breeders will even keep shrimp in their breeding boxes, with their fresh spawns to minimise the risk of fungal infection. So you don't need to worry about shrimp eating your rice fish eggs. The parents themselves are a greater treat to the newly hatched fry. 

The temperature remains an issue, I know that both shrimp and rice fish can tolerate cooler temperature, but I cannot comment on ideal breeding temperature.  

 

[lewk]

Should work out great! Got any photos of the tri-colored Rice fish? I'm looking at getting Rice fish myself and haven't seen those but they sound awesome.

[TheSwissAquarist]

I think it depends on the kind of shrimp you use (e.g ghost shrimp, amanos, etc..)

On 10/12/2022 at 10:22 PM, Nik_n said:

Shrimp, such as blue dream or red cherry won't eat or harm fish eggs. Some breeders will even keep shrimp in their breeding boxes, with their fresh spawns to minimise the risk of fungal infection.

 

[Nik_n]

On 10/13/2022 at 7:21 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

I think it depends on the kind of shrimp you use (e.g ghost shrimp, amanos, etc..)

 

I'm sure they all have the same effect on the eggs, I never kept shrimp so I never personally tried this method out, but plan on doing it in the future. I have seen Nick from Keeping Fish Simple use blue dream shrimp in one of the older videos.  

[PedroPete]

I agree with @lewk - photos please 😄 I have ricefish, too (black, wild type /gray, orange head, platinum, and mixed/"mutt" from LFS). Love them. I don't personally keep shrimp with my medakas, but I do keep them with guppies and least killifish.  I would imagine that the ricefish and shrimp could coexist, but some baby shrimp would become fish food and some medaka eggs would become shrimp food. I do think it could work, especially if you use floating breeding mops for the rice fish and add some bricks/rock piles for the shrimp to hide in.